Races have become too cliche?

[BRP2]

Is it just me or is about the use of the DnD races in every game the same?

Elves have been around for a long, long, long time. They were once extremely powerful, now, not so much, at least compared to humans.

Humans are everywhere. They are the strongest race and practically the only race that matters. For every other race that has a civilization, Humans have three.

Dwarves are somewhere in between Humans and Elves.

I don't see the point getting into Halflings or Gnomes, since by comparison they seem to vary more.

Everytime I look at a timeline for a Campaign setting(by WotC or a random DM) or even a videogame with Fantasy elements, it's like deja vu.

I'm sure there are plenty of wacky campaigns out there, but it seems the majority of them are the same, even the steampunk ones.

 

[RangerWickett]

If I weren't so sleepy, I'd quote something about Hero with a Thousand Faces and narrative archetypes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Is it just me or is about the use of the DnD races in every game the same?

It's just you. Dark Sun is, what, 12 years old? And it turns every one of the basic ideas on their head. Eberron, more recently, turned a bunch more over. And that doesn't count the myriad of clever homebrew ideas out there. Heck, even as far back as Q1, we saw planes where things were very different.

If your games all seem the same, stop making them all the same.

 

[BRP2]

Let's say I'm bored and want to check out some settings people crafted online. If I randomly pick out of a pool of 10, it seems only 1 will have anything unique in this regard. This is homebrew I'm talking about.

 

[Friadoc]

You know, sometimes one person's cliché is another person's homage.

For some those stereotypes are a tradition, similar to a vampire being an effeminate power broker, or the unknown benefactor who turns out to be your worst foe.

While they have the potential to be a hackneyed plot device, they could still end up being one of the more memorable RPG moments for someone who either doesn't know it's a cliche or enjoyed it in spite that fact.

One of these stereotypes, I think, is always going to be needed, since it is who we (the readers/players/GMs) find common ground with - Humans are flawed, thusly we find common ground with them. One of the rarer exceptions to this, I think, are the Hobbits of the Shire, since they're more of the 'everyman' character and many of the humans in the LotR are either too flawed or too idealistic.

We need a mentor group (elves) and a guide/comrade group (dwarves or halflings) and a mixed group (gnomes) to help aide our experiences.

Now I think you could easily design a realm that changes this, as many obviously has, and even use the races differently, but many common myths/stories have the sunset people/races who are aiding the new races as they enter the world from which the mentor types are passing.

It's a life cycle thing - Our parents help us, or siblings go through it with us, while uncles and cousins vary in other roles, sometimes mentoring, sometimes co-experiencing.

Of course, it could just me my work and my Rockstar talking.

 

[Friadoc]

A quick addendum:

I would say that Arcana Evolved does mix things up a bit, in that you have a lot more of the 'young' races, with an odd mix of the mentor group, in that the mentors are somewhat reluctant and the co-experiencers are more numerous.

Ptolus has many traditional elements in it too, however the human-centric power groups are old too.

Eberron, too, as someone mentioned, plays things a bit differently, too.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Eberron really turns a lot of the racial stereotypes on their head. I think it's one of the major accomplishments of the setting, actually.

There have been other settings where Elves and Dwarves weren't hackneyed stereotypes. Glorantha comes to mind. Elves in Glorantha weren't mentor types, and Dwarves certainly weren't companions.

Ken

 

[William drake]

Is it just me or is about the use of the DnD races in every game the same?

Elves have been around for a long, long, long time. They were once extremely powerful, now, not so much, at least compared to humans.

Humans are everywhere. They are the strongest race and practically the only race that matters. For every other race that has a civilization, Humans have three.

Dwarves are somewhere in between Humans and Elves.

I don't see the point getting into Halflings or Gnomes, since by comparison they seem to vary more.

Everytime I look at a timeline for a Campaign setting(by WotC or a random DM) or even a videogame with Fantasy elements, it's like deja vu.

I'm sure there are plenty of wacky campaigns out there, but it seems the majority of them are the same, even the steampunk ones.

I agree to a point. I think, for a while, all gamers play these types of heroes, however, after some time, things change and gamers evolve. If they don't, then it's tiresome (people who play the characters you're talking about, play things like Drizzt and the other cardboard cutout types from R.A's book of pooh*

I think some of the problems with Roleplaying, is that no one wants to play unless they are doing the most amazing things, however, in real myths and legends, only one or two things in the entire story were amazing...most of it was just good plots, good converstaions, basic, but in that, is where people related. So, the story is about going after a sword...everything the heroes encounter, or do, doesn't have to be what they've done before a million times, and they dont have to fight the craziest foes to make it dangerous and fearful.

Trying playing an entire human game. Now I know "I want to be an elf" well, if your an elf, then every one wants to be an elf, and if everyones an elf, then what is so rare about you? If however you play a human game, you then have the ability to use the other races, as they, I think, were intended to be. Fleeting, going away. Now I know, everything is set up that way...well, if they weren't then it would not be the age of MEN, which most of the stories are about. In LOTR, when Aragon, Legolas, and Gimly meet with the riders of Rhohan, the captain is supprised about what he's seeing, and thinks that elves were just in stories but if he sees, or knows those whove seen elves offten, would he care?

It just depends on what your doing. If there are few humans, then you should be playing in a more ancient time...if there are alot of Men, then the other races are dying out or going away. The reason that there are always more humans than anyone else, is because humans mature, and mate sooner, and more offten than any other people. Elves live to be thousands of years in some stories, and that means they dont start into their maturity untill they are at least a few hundred years old, by that times, how many lines of men have been born, and how many of their children had children and so on....and if any ones ever read Paul Anderson *a very good story, kind of like LOTR* he talks about how male elves lose their sexual urges after a few thousand years, they turn to their minds, their magic...while females, just like in human society, reach their sexual peeks later in life. There for, they take on human lovers, and that just makes sense that over time, there will be less and less pure bloods..and over enough time, there won't be any at all.

You also have to look at it from an evolutonary background. Men are always seen as the best race, therefore, even thoug elves are the wisest, they are not fit to survive, they dont spread or adapt, or survive as good as MEN do, therefor, they are going away. Dwarves stay to themselves, and slowly their races dies. This is true for all the old races, they are evolutonary culdsacks *some of this is personal oppinion* so it makes sense that Men are the dominate race. And, if you play a game where everyone is human, when you do encounter the old and magical, it is that, but much much more.

The last thing I will say is this "if everything in your world is old, magical, lost, unknown, powerful...and so on, then I ask: is any of it?" If you encounter the strange and mystical everygame, then what about any of it is strange and mystical...

 

[senodam]

Most of my games do see the standard races drop into the same archetypal roles over and over, but that's largely because we like them that way. (We being my group, of course).

When we want to play the gruff dwarven miners, cheerful halflings, and ancient aloof elves etc, etc we come to D&D. It works well, and we all know where we stand. D&D is dungeon crawling, monster slaying, light hearted fun and adventure- and it's darned good at doing it.

If we want something different then we have everything from RuneQuest to Exalted, Earthdawn and Talislanta to fool about with. There's no need to tinker with the winning formula of D&D just so we can end up with something that already exists elsewhere.

 

[Klaus]

Is it just me or is about the use of the DnD races in every game the same?

It's probably just you. Let's see, though, shall we?

Elves have been around for a long, long, long time. They were once extremely powerful, now, not so much, at least compared to humans.

With a lifespan of at least 5 centuries, they'd better have been around for a long time. But "once extremely powerful, now, not so much" is only in Middle-Earth. The baseline D&D elf has the same society he has always had, for the extent of known history.

Humans are everywhere. They are the strongest race and practically the only race that matters. For every other race that has a civilization, Humans have three.

The game is written by humans. And to avoid calls for "prejudice!", the writers tend to pay lip service to the myriad of human ethnic groups and the environments and cultures where they originate.

Dwarves are somewhere in between Humans and Elves.

Halflings are more so. Dwarves are generally far from the Elves, and in D&D they are equal to elves in craftsmanship of weapons and armor, as opposed to Middle-Earth, where Elves surpassed Dwarves in everything (including, apparently, drinking).

I don't see the point getting into Halflings or Gnomes, since by comparison they seem to vary more.

So they don't support your theory, so there's no point in analyzing them?

Everytime I look at a timeline for a Campaign setting(by WotC or a random DM) or even a videogame with Fantasy elements, it's like deja vu.

Because, you know, necromantic elves who keep their deceased in mummy-like states or bedouin-like elves who ride for blood and glory and death are everywhere (just for an example).